Longer COVID-19 Testing Lines, Wait Times At ER, Seen Across Southern California

By CBSLA Staff, CBS Los Angeles:

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Long queues of cars waiting hours for a COVID-19 test, and overflowing hospitals were seen all over Southern California Monday, a flashback to troubling images displayed early in the pandemic.

A combination of very sick unvaccinated patients in emergency rooms and hospital workers getting infected with the highly contagious Omicron variant is making for a shortage of frontline workers on the job.

“My ER is completely overrun right now. Folks are waiting 21 to 25 hours there to get a bed if they need a bed, and that’s for all patients regardless of whether you have COVID or not,” said Anne Caputo-Pear, an RN at California Hospital Medical Center.

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